Fire-door



s. C. FISHER.

FIRE DOOR.

APPLICATION FILED IuLYao. 1911.

Patented June 24, 1919.

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S. C. FISHER.

FIRE DOOR.

APPLlcATloN FILED Jun/30.1911.

1,308,006. Patented June 24, 1919.

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' SIDNEY c. FISHER, Aor iviEnrjofitnk MAssneHUsETTs.

FIRE-DOOR.

ySpecification of Letters Patent. A

Patented June 24., 1919.

Application filed July 30. 1917. Serial No. 183,399.

To @ZZ whom it may concern: n

Be it known that I, SIDNEY C. FISHER, a subject of the King of,v Great Britannand a resident of Medford, in the county of Middlesex and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Fire-Doors,` of rwhich the following is a full, clear, and exact specilication. i

This invention relates to means for controlling through variations in temperature various kinds of closing devices, as fire doors,

vertical shutters, balanced doors, safety elevator doors, fire curtains, lire shutters on ex terior of buildings, doors in offices, stores. and banks for safety and private reasons,

exit `doors in public buildings, trap doors, andthe like, the invention being particularly disclosed as applied to re doors.

My invention has `forits objects the construction of electrically y controlled ymeans for holding' doors open with a normally closed circuit. Second, lineans which will permit the .doors to be opened and closed indepeudently ofthe controlling means; which will enable all of several doors to be-actuated by `a watchman from a single point;

which will enable the fire to automatically close one or more doors no matter wherein the building the iire may occur, and which can instantly close upon the outbreak of a slight blaze any conduit or chute leading to other parts of an establishment. f Third, the

invention relatesto certain improvements -indetails of construction liereinaftei'set forth. Referring to the drawings forming part of this specification, `Figure lis a sectional elevation of a building showing a plurality of floors and door ways controlled by electric devices embodying my improvements. Fig. 2 is a sectional elevationof a building showing a plurality of doors all closalble automatically by a slight fire at any one point in the room. Fig. 3 is a diagram of a machine having a conduit adapted to be closed by a blaze which might be started by the machine itself.

In the structure illustrated in Fig. 1, the reference numeral 1 designates a door-way; 2, a fire-door therefor supported by wheels 3 running on an inclined rail lg and 5, 6 and 7 are the floors of the building. This inclination of the rail 4l causes the door to roll to its closing position in front of the doorway 1, unless it is held wide open. For the latter purpose, an electromagnet 10 is attached to a suitable support, as the wall pierced bythe door-way, and an armature 11 is' carried 'by the door. So long as the electromagnet is maintained in an energized condition, its magnetic pull upon the armaturefserves to retain the door inv its open position, since the amount of energy required for the purpose is comparatively slight, and since, moreover, the armature is composed of soft iron. i

For demagnetizing the electromagnet when a slight fire, or an unusually high degree of heat occurs at any part of the room,

the conductor wires 12, by which the current is delivered from a suitable source, as 13, to the electromagnet, are provided with numerous short sections 1t of easily fusible material distributed at frequent intervals therein.

Consequently, if a blaze or an extra high degree of-heat occurs anywhere along the path of the wire,lthe fusible metal melts, the circuit is broken, the electromagnet is demagnetized, and the door rolls down to its closed position. By locating this wire at all exposed points onl the walls, ceiling and elsewhere, lit is made practically impossible for a fire started in one of the rooms to spread through a doorway to another part of the establishment.

I prefer .to'provide avstop 15 for the door Q when it isthrown open, and to provide a. spring connection 16 between the armature 11 andthe door,uin order to save the electromagnet from any shoclrduring such openings, and at the same time to maintain the armature kin absolute contact with ythe pole of the electromagnet and so to insure the maximum Aof attractive pull between the two.

The spring illustrated is a small elliptical one, but I do'not restrict myself thereto, since any form of resilient buffer which will both sufficiently yield and at the same time confine the armature to the door, will serve the purpose.

In the form; of wiring disclosed in Fig. 1, a .fire in one of the rooms may not close more than one door, that is, a lire in the upper room will open the circuit for that rooms door-holding magnet alone, and a fire which will fuse the sections 1.4 along the ceiling of the lower room will aieot its door alone, but a fire below the floor 7 or at the walls of the lower room will effect the closure of both of the doors.

For enabling a watcluna'n to close both doors simultaneously and without awaiting a heat-broken circuit, a switch 17 is introduced into the circuit at a convenient point, as in the wire-section 12a of the upper room, and the wire 12" is connected with the wire 1Qa above the switch. Thus arranged, a throw of the switch demagnetizes all the electromagnets and causes all the doors to close; after which, he returns the switch to its closed position, in order that when the doors are slid wide open in the morning, or other desired occasion, they will all be magnetically held open. A voltmeter 19 may be provided for the purpose of revealing at sight if the current supplied by the batteries, or other source 13, is suiiicient for holding Jthe doors.

In the construction illustrated in Fig. 2, a single room is shown having several doorways 1 provided with self-closing doors 2 held open by electromagnets 10. These electromagnets are all arranged in series so that if the circuit is broken at any point in the wires 1Q, all of the magnets simultaneously release their armatures 11 and all the doors close.

Fig. 3 indicates a machine 20, supposedly one which is used in connection with highly combustible material, as cotton lint, and from which a conduit 21 opens to other parts of the building. This conduit is shown as closable by a sliding door :22 actuated by a weight 23, the door being held open by an electromagnet 10 and armature 11. The circuit wire 24 is shown as disposed closely about the mouth of the conduit 21 and about the machine, so that the instant a spark or overheated bearing starts a blaze in the cotton, the door is closed and danger of spread of the ire reduced to a minimum.

Among other advantages of this system of fire protection are its economy, ease of installation, its guarantee against failure, and its convenience and durability. With this closed circuit system, the moment a wire becomes accidentally broken, or the current source unduly weak, the same is revealed by the closing of the doors. A door can be closed by hand without affecting the magnetic devices and without stopping to disconnect any hooks or catches. Any watchman or attendant can, by the simple throw of a switch, close every fire door in the building or throughout the establishment, where previous to my invention it frequently required one or two hours for a watchman to journey from Hoor to floor and room to room closing the doors by hand.

While I have illustrated my invention as applied to sliding doors alone, I do not restrict myself thereto; no1` do I restrict my self to doors normally held open by a magnet, as it is selfevident that the reverse can be done equally well.

In my use of the word door in the claims, I wish to be understood as embracing therein all devices for inclosing openings, including shutters, blinds and the like.

What I claim is:

1. The combination with a fire door or the like having continuously acting means for closing it, of an electromagnet and an armature one of which is carried by said door and the other of which is supported stationary with respect to said door, and means controlled by variations in temperature for energizing said electromagnet, said electromagnet and armature being disposed to be brought together when said door is open and to hold the latter by direct magnetic attraction from the effect of said con tinuously acting closing means, while permitting its ready closure by hand.

2. The combination with a fire door or the like having a continuously acting means for closing it, of an electromagnet supported near the door when the latter is open, an armature having a resiliently yielding connection with the door to be supported in the magnetic field of the electromagnet when the door is open, means for continuously energizing the electromagnet, and means controlled by variations in temperature for cutting out the energizing means.

In testimony that I claim the foregoing invention, I have hereunto set my hand this 28th day of July, 1917.

SIDNEY C. FISHER.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for ve cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents. Washington, D. C. 

